LIFETIME MEASUREMENTS OF EXCITED STATES IN $H_{2}$

Author Institution: Department of physics, The Ohio State UniversityWe have measured the lifetimes of several rotational-vibrational levels of triplet $n = 3$ gerade states in molecular hydrogen. A plasma discharge creates an intense beam of metastable $2p \ c^{3} \Pi_{u}$ levels. From these levels, we populate a specific rotational-vibrational level of an $n = 3$ electronic state be a resonant laser. After a delay, the remaining population is photoionized by a second laser excitation. By measuring the photoionization yield as a function of the delay between the excitation and photoionization lasers, we are able to measure the lifetime of the excited level. We compare our lifetime measurements with recent theoretical results